Defending Good Science

January, 2004

A Whale of a Farce

There’s no denying that 2003 had its moments.  Between mad cows, burning space shuttles and captured dictators, the assignment editors of North America must have been exhausted by the time December rolled through.  2003 even saw the Terminator take charge of California – what sort of bizarre planetary alignment would bring that on?

But I thought I had seen all matters of the strange and bizarre until I heard that our good orca friend “Keiko” had died.  Keiko, the whale who was the inspiration for the movie “Free Willy,” was living his days off the coast of Norway after an activist group raised millions upon millions of dollars in an effort to free him.

The “Free Willy/Keiko Foundation” would understandably be upset over news that its protégé had died.  But in a move which astounds even me, they managed to get beyond that initial setback.

A BBC interview with David Phillips, the director of the Foundation, was published the day after Keiko’s death.  The article said Mr.Phillips was having trouble deciding where to bury the deceased whale.

"My preference would be to bury him on land," he said.   "If you bury him on land we could still recover his skeleton and that might have some value in a museum or something, but that is still being worked out."
 
Ostensibly, this is an activist group dedicated to saving a particular animal from the harshness of human exploitation.  But now that their bread, butter and fundraising spigot had gone fins up, they didn’t skip a beat in managing to find more ways of milking the public for dollars.
 
(This is hardly surprising, given the origins of the “Free Willy/Keiko Foundation.”  One of their main partners is the “Humane Society of the United States,” or HSUS.  Guess how many animal shelters the HSUS runs?  Zero.  They rely on mistaken name recognition in an effort to raise money.  It works – they have over $85 million in assets.)

So, less than two days later - in the middle of the night, no less - the foundation dug a giant hole in a ‘secret location’ in Norway, slid Keiko’s carcass across a snowy field, and using heavy machinery, buried Keiko.  Only seven people were present.  The foundation claims it was to prevent the ceremony from becoming a media circus.  I suspect it had much more to do with avoiding embarrassing questions like “shouldn’t Keiko be buried at sea, where he belongs?”
 
One has to wonder – how long will it be until the foundation manages to open the official museum, with admission charges?  Will they offer commemorative Keiko skeletons in the gift shop?    At last count, the Free Willy Keiko foundation had raised over $20 million US dollars… my guess is they haven’t finished yet.
 
Activist groups usually claim to have a ‘higher calling.’  They need your money to protect the ozone, stop global warming, or in this case, save a whale.  But when the whale can no longer be saved, only a truly ingenious group manages to find a way to still make money.  Let’s just hope this farce is eventually revealed for exactly that – call me cynical, but I don’t think this particular foundation is working towards a higher calling.

Checkmate Link of the Month

http://www.keiko.com is the official website for the “Free Willy/Keiko Foundation.”  Please take a look, if for no other reason than to notice that the home page clearly provides a place where you can still donate money.  In fact, the donation link says “Donate to Our Campaign to Assist Keiko in His Transition Back to Ocean Freedom.”  The foundation has planned a Keiko Memorial fundraising tour.  But nowhere on the website does it say what they did with Keiko’s body.

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